The genre of a feature script contender for my third year. It's further from anything I’ve written or thought I’d ever be interested in writing. The only reason being, I don’t think I’m good enough.
At first I was intimidated at writing a war piece because I didn’t think I’d be able to achieve it. It would take a lot of research and the quality and level of detail would need to be perfect. But then I thought the backdrop of the war does bring a nice contrast and unusual twist to this type of story. Not to mention the story itself, which is really moving and hopefully an original side to the war.
I’ve had the title and a story idea for years. But it was an idea that I knew would have its time 'much later' when i actually had a career rather than 'much sooner' when i don't.
Initially it was a novel idea with a brief description but a year or two later it turned into a film. That story idea was only a page which consisted of a few characters and the main character's story development. That still stands but the setting has been shifted from the present day to the past and actually during the war.
This idea is a significant development in my writing and attitude as a writer and has opened my mind to many possibilities in terms of genre and setting. Before I limited myself to a few specific genres and was mainly interesting in contemporary dramas about people. They were the scripts I would be comfortable with writing and didn't look in the direction of the others because they were far from what I thought I wanted to tell or could tell. But at the core the same always remains; people and their dramas. So it doesn't matter where its set or under what context. It's still about people and what its like to be human. But the challenge in a script shouldn't just be in the emotional story but also in its arena and setting and how that's used to enhance the story and its characters.
Overall, this script has taught me to avoid what is repetitive and easy in a story and go for the challenge and originality in every script.
